. . . The floating ice will come up from the coast (he explains) and be linked to the winch . . .
Tap tap. Tap tap.
Still the chaffinch beats the glass.
. . . Then will move on heated rollers that follow the old bed of the river.
Initially, the rollers will warm the bottom of the berg to create a melt zone. The ice above will push down on that zone, creating friction, causing further heat which will, in turn, itself melt the base of the ice, giving it more fluidity to move. The meltwater will be drained to irrigate points along the route, to help grow food.
On the graphic, the process is exaggerated. Gloriously magnified. Over-size drops riddle down the ice, pooling with the water melted by the downward pressure.
My favourite caption appears then on the screen: Stillicide collected to serve crops.
I’d never heard the word before. Stillicide. Water falling, in drops. I challenge myself to get it into a sentence for the pressies.
‘Will the Ice Dock only serve the city?’ I notice the journalist who asks this wears a blouse the colour of the chaffinch’s breast. I’ve been practising the answer.
‘Steven?’ Alan invites.
‘Yes. Despite the impression, there is actually quite a lot of water to go round. Particularly in the summer.’ I make a joke. ‘When’s the last time you had a barbecue in August?
‘There’s a lot of rain. And we’re an island, so we’re surrounded by water we could desalinate. But on a large scale, and for so many people, the energy required is prohibitive. When the sun comes out it’s hot. But it doesn’t come out enough. It’s a case, for the smaller communities, of properly managing the water they do have.’
‘So it’s not the fact you can’t really own seawater, and so can’t make enough money from desalination?’ The question comes from Colin. He looks like he eats a lot of kale but not because he likes it.
‘No,’ I disabuse him. ‘It’s simply the quantity of people in the city, and what that process would take; and, of course, the quantity of water required for the superfarms that feed us.
‘We only drink a relatively small fraction of the supply. Agriculture uses seventy per cent. It’s likely part of that draw, over and above the in-transit stillicide (yay!), will be serviced by the Water Train.’
‘The term “they” was used earlier, but the corporation own the train as well. Right?’ Colin, again.
‘We manage the technical operation of the train. It’s owned by the city,’ Alan clarifies.
‘Which is why the Metropolitan Police patrol the line.’
‘Correct. But we’re here to talk about the Ice Dock. Not the Water Train.’
‘Of course,’ Alan picks up, ‘the project does mean sacrifices’ (why use that word?). ‘Not just the Dock itself. The tipping basin the tugs will tow it to, and the conveyor-way to bring the berg into the Dock. All this means moving people. But we’re trying to water millions here – and the other benefits that come with this. Some of us’ (and why use ‘us’?), ‘will have to “take one for the team”.’
I see the pressies wince at this, but how else can you put it?
Even from primary school science they should know. The weight displaced by a floating object equals the weight of that floating object.
What does an average family weigh?
‘Perhaps we should bring Ms Williams in here,’ I suggest, and Alan invites the Spokesperson for Westminster to speak.
‘Well, yes,’ Ms Williams says. ‘Government is supporting smaller cities, as well as here.’ I thought we’d moved on from that question, but. ‘Plans for extra reservoirs are already significantly progressed.’
‘And people displaced, again.’ Colin gives Ms Williams no time to answer. ‘As in the 1950s and 60s. Whole communities.’
‘You’re talking about the bombings then, of dams in Wales that watered Northern and Midland cities.’
‘I’m surprised you know. Causing political tension. Militant factions. Just as with the Water Train.’
I have the weird conviction Ms Williams is going to swallow Colin, flick out her tongue like a chameleon, and gulp him down in one.
‘There are always people who will look to destabilise society,’ she says. (She should have said derail.) ‘To create division.’
‘When they’re pushed to,’ Colin says, as if he’s proud of them.
‘Often because it serves them.’ Ms Williams seems unflapped. ‘Unfortunately, people will need to be displaced again. But in the case of hillside communities we are rebuilding new settlements. For them to relocate to. Most of them within short distances of their existing homes.’
‘Shanty towns! Out of rusty metal boxes.’ Colin must be hard to live with.
‘The re-use of containers from the decommissioned shipping yards provides a cost-effective and flexible solution with low eco-impact.’
‘But you’re still displacing families that have lived in a place for generations. Just as with the Ice Dock.’
‘Yes. But this is unavoidable. We live in a society. It isn’t always possible to take into account every individual. Policy always aims to arrive at a solution which helps the greatest number.’
Here it comes, from Colin . . .
‘By definition, then, the cities.’
. . . Setting me up perfectly.
‘But this is a key aspect,’ I interject, ‘of this Ice Dock project. It will serve the city from within the city. This won’t mean a community of farmers having their way of life destroyed so a distant town can have water. The people affected are from within the community that will benefit. It’s time for the city to take responsibility for itself.’
My silver bullet fired I look at the display cases around the room. A beautiful desiccated shoe, the archaeological finds uncovered during the build; the mural of the Dock site through the ages: the tower blocks flattened; Victorian causeways, a medieval bustle; a Saxon settlement upon the fen. The stadium suddenly disappeared, as if it’s lifted into space. They all look somehow interchangeable, these times, and humanised. Then there is the big white hole.
Ms Williams speaks passionately, is animated. She looks like a puppet, except she has no strings. Just the muscle memory that’s got her where she is.
We see another glorious digigram. A canopy of prisms focus sunlight on the ice. And Susan brings in glasses of cool ice water.
‘We want it to be cheap, and available to all,’ says Alan. ‘And municipal subsidies will help. The Mayor and most people in the city are fully behind the Dock.’
We break up the formal session.
The digigram loops its gorgeous graphics, plays a quiet music, symphonic in its way like the soundtrack of the nature discs.
Another screen gives us a live feed of work in progress at the Dock site. Men busy at the concrete face of the bay, dust rising about them like a smoke. They look more to be attacking the structure than progressing it. Smugglers and bandits, garbed in totem clothes.